Today I am bringing you a review of Vagrant, a new mixtape by Pittsburgh rapper Bill. I found out about this guy after hearing him spit a verse on Mac Miller's Delusional Thomas project from last year. He was not amazing or mind-blowing, but the dude had some natural talent. I was pretty excited to give this a listen after finding out about it. How will Bill's first ever project sound?
Starting with the rapping, Bill can really spit. This guy just has all the skills necessary to catch my ear on a song. He has pretty much everything except an ear-grabbing or unique voice. Where Bill shines is in flow and lyricism. His flow and delivery are both really solid, and there are never any unsmooth moments on this mixtape. He just flows nicely, and manages to switch it up a lot. This guy will never flow with mind-blowing technical ability, but he manages to sound like a veteran on these tracks. The one thing that sets Bill apart from many others are his lyrics. He comes in with some really odd and unique lines all over this tape. His vocabulary is pretty advanced and he just says things that stick in my mind. One small complaint I have with this is its song structures. All of them are pretty much the same, with Bill just straight rapping for about two minutes. If theres a feature on the song, then they have a verse, but its not like there are any hooks or bridges here. This isn't a terrible thing because Bill is interesting enough, but I wish he changed it up a little bit. My favorite songs here are Vagrant, Rampage, Villain, and Raw Product. A disappointment on this mixtape was the song Campfire. I was anticipating this because it featured Mac Miller and Ab-Soul, but it ended up sounding too boring and slow. I've also heard Mac and Ab-Soul spit way better verses before. Overall though, its hard to complain about Bill's performance on Vagrant. He spits pretty consistently all the way through.
The beats on Vagrant are pretty interesting, to say the least. A lot of these instrumentals are dense, with a lot of different musical things going on. Many of these also utilize some unique sounds and noises mixed into the beats. They do have an ongoing dark vibe that is pretty consistent throughout the project, but that is the only thing they have in common. I would say these beats match Bill's rapping pretty well, as the dark nature of the instrumentals match the dark nature of Bill's lyrics. One beat in particular that caught my attention the second I heard it was Villain. This one did a great job of setting the vibe, and it was incredibly melodic and catchy. Some of my other favorites were Vagrant, McGruff, and Campfire. The latter was interesting especially because of how it related to the title. The quiet guitar beat definitely reminded me of someone playing around a camp fire. The beats on this tape were just as consistent as the rapping, with all of them bringing something different, but none of them failing at these risks. None were mind-blowing, but they were all solid.
VAGRANT WRAP-UP
+Bill is an skilled rapper, flow and lyric-wise
+He'll spit some unique lines every once in a while
+Has the talent to carry a straight, no hook type of song
+Great beats, some pretty interesting ones
-Disappointing features
-Doesn't change up the song structures
-Nothing really amazing or memorable, everything is just solid
Best: Vagrant, Villain, Raw Product
Worst: No IOU's
Bill- Vagrant
7.5/10
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